Astana Kazakstan racer Luis Leon Sanchez paid tribute to Mark Cavendish's addition to the team, saying it would be beneficial for all parties.

The veteran Spaniard claimed that before signing Cavendish, Astana needed what he called a "reference point" for 2023 due to the lack of top-level leaders.

Cavendish initially signed a contract with B&B Hotels of France for 2023. The ambitious project was expected to develop and expand the low-profile French team into a better-funded team with a strong new sponsor.

However, the team's plans fell apart and Cavendish was forced to look for a team for this season very late in the season; it was not until mid-January that a deal with Astana Kazakstan, which has been on the World Tour for nearly 20 years, was confirmed.

"I think it's beneficial for everyone," Sanchez, currently Astana Cazacustan's longest-serving rider and always a key part of the team's Grand Tour lineup, told Cycling News during the ongoing Vuelta a la Comunitat Valenciana race.

"Astana needs a reference point and Cavendish will get a team that is part of the World Tour, that guarantees participation in all the World Tour races and that has been part of the racing scene for a very long time.

Sanchez, who has been with Astana since 2015 and was also briefly in the first lineup in 2006, recognizes that the team "has never had a sprinter with his characteristics, so we will have to change some of the usual characteristics, but we are all happy he is here He recognizes that he is here."

"He has already attended the team's training camp and is a very friendly chabal muy majo (great guy). For our part, we will work hard to get him to the level he needs to be at to be able to pull off a win."

Sanchez is cautiously optimistic about how the team will approach the problem of working for a top sprinter.

"Whatever it is, when it comes to learning to work, it's a process. "Like you said, we're not a team with a strong tradition of sprinting, but we're already at the top of the Saudi Tour (two third places and sixth overall - ed.]

"We have [Davide] Martinelli and other guys who are fast. We have to train and build a lead-out. But that's what we're here for. And the victory he wants and most of all the victory the team needs will come."

Sanchez, himself a winner of four stages in the Tour de France and winner of Paris-Nice and Donostia-San Sebastian Classicoa, insists that the chance to be part of a Tour de France team vying for its 35th stage win, the most in history, this July is a once in a lifetime He insists it is a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

"It's something I would love to do," he said. It's the culmination of a career for Cavendish, and it's really special for the team to be a part of it. There are a lot of young riders coming up, and there are teams made up entirely of sprinters.

"But we'll keep blazing our own trail. In the first race, victory won't be so easy to come by, but we'll do everything we can to win what lies ahead."